EDITORIAL: A drugstore chain kicks the habit

Published: Friday, February 14, 2014 at 04:16 PM.

The 18 percent of Americans who smoke are finding fewer and fewer places in which to indulge their stinky habit. They can’t do it in restaurants. They can’t do it in most public buildings. And now they’re being squeezed out of places to buy their smokes. The CVS drugstore chain has announced it won’t sell cigarettes, cigars or chewing tobacco at its 7,600 stores after Oct. 1.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no place in a setting where health care is being delivered,” said Larry Merlo, chief executive officer for CVS, the nation’s second-largest pharmacy company.
Good for CVS.
The chain expects to lose about $2 billion in annual revenue (out of a yearly total exceeding $100 billion) by ending tobacco sales, but the move is a significant victory for freedom.
The company’s freedom, for starters. CVS has decided to work more closely with doctors and become more of a health care provider, not just a seller of medicines. Cigarettes don’t fit into that strategy. So the chain is changing the mix of products it offers.
Customers’ freedom, meanwhile, is unencumbered. Smokers won’t be denied the product they crave. It’s just that after Oct. 1, they’ll have to go somewhere other than CVS to find cigarettes, cigars and their favorite chew. If smokers become so miffed at CVS they want to stop spending money there altogether, they’re free to do that, too.
But there’s really no need to be angry. Although CVS’s decision was part of a business strategy, it’s still widely beneficial. Tobacco is linked to a catalog of serious ailments and is blamed for 480,000 deaths a year in the United States. Making it more difficult to buy will discourage unhealthy behavior, reduce the secondhand smoke that puts nonsmokers at risk, and — who knows? — maybe make the air a little cleaner.
To its considerable credit, CVS didn’t wait for the government to banish cigarettes from drugstore shelves. The chain acted on its own. We hope other pharmacies will follow suit.

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The 18 percent of Americans who smoke are finding fewer and fewer places in which to indulge their stinky habit. They can’t do it in restaurants. They can’t do it in most public buildings. And now they’re being squeezed out of places to buy their smokes. The CVS drugstore chain has announced it won’t sell cigarettes, cigars or chewing tobacco at its 7,600 stores after Oct. 1.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no place in a setting where health care is being delivered,” said Larry Merlo, chief executive officer for CVS, the nation’s second-largest pharmacy company.
Good for CVS.
The chain expects to lose about $2 billion in annual revenue (out of a yearly total exceeding $100 billion) by ending tobacco sales, but the move is a significant victory for freedom.
The company’s freedom, for starters. CVS has decided to work more closely with doctors and become more of a health care provider, not just a seller of medicines. Cigarettes don’t fit into that strategy. So the chain is changing the mix of products it offers.
Customers’ freedom, meanwhile, is unencumbered. Smokers won’t be denied the product they crave. It’s just that after Oct. 1, they’ll have to go somewhere other than CVS to find cigarettes, cigars and their favorite chew. If smokers become so miffed at CVS they want to stop spending money there altogether, they’re free to do that, too.
But there’s really no need to be angry. Although CVS’s decision was part of a business strategy, it’s still widely beneficial. Tobacco is linked to a catalog of serious ailments and is blamed for 480,000 deaths a year in the United States. Making it more difficult to buy will discourage unhealthy behavior, reduce the secondhand smoke that puts nonsmokers at risk, and — who knows? — maybe make the air a little cleaner.
To its considerable credit, CVS didn’t wait for the government to banish cigarettes from drugstore shelves. The chain acted on its own. We hope other pharmacies will follow suit.